I need to mount a VHD file at grub2 command prompt.
I tries using "loopback" command as shown below:
grub > insmod ntfs
grub > insmod ntldr
grub > loopback loop (hd0,1)/test.vhd
grub > ls (loop)/
error: unknown filesystem
I tried both "static" and "dynamic" vhd and both VHD file had ntfs partitioned data.
I guess VHD files have some header data which makes the filesystem not recognizable after "loopback" mount. I am able to mount and access "iso" files using same set of commands.
Is my guess correct? If so, is there a way to overcome this issue?
Well, your guess is half right:
Whilst VHD supports a linear "fixed" storage model, which actually is just the raw data as it would be stored on a "real" hard drive, followed by a VHD footer, this is most probably not usually the case; VHD supports dynamically resizing images, which of course aren't linear internally, so you can't simply boot into that.
I was finally able to get the data from the loop mounted data with following change in the above pasted grub command.
grub > insmod ntfs
grub > loopback loop (hd0,1)/test.vhd
grub > ls (loop,1)/
The file "test.vhd" was a single partitioned VHD file.
NOTE: Only "fixed" or "static" model VHDs work. I could not get it working with "dynamic" VHD (as suggested by #Marcus Müller )
Thanks for the help. Hope this helps somebody.
To use VHD disks on grub2 need:
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
loopback loop /point/where/disk.vhd tdisk=VHD
ls (loop,msdos1)/
Related
How would I go about changing the address GRUB tries to load my kernel at without using the linker?
I would like to do this from GRUB config files.
Boot your machine. When you get to the grub menu press c. You will go into grub prompt.
With ls you can view your devices and partitions. Look through your partitions until you have the correct one.
ls
ls (hd0,gpt1)/
ls (hd0,gpt2)/
ls (hd1,gpt1)/
ls (hd1,gpt2)/
...
Let's assume the files are located at hd0,gpt2 and it is the only USB device -> /dev/sda2. We also assume at the root folder / there is your kernel vmlinuz and an initial ramdisk initrd.img.
Type into your grub prompt:
set root=(hd0,gpt2)
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 rootdelay=10
initrd /initrd.img
When your machine boots correctly you can put this into your grub config files.
i am planing to write ansible playbook for file system creation. i am using Logical volume manager(LVM).
can any one help me to identify the new lun using ansible modules.
Generally speaking, this is very operating system specific. Your best path forward is to figure out what steps you would do from the command line to detect that there is a new disk and then use shell, parsing the result stdout. For example, on ubuntu, you might run fdisk -l and look for unpartitioned / unallocated drives and parse the output.
I use UBIFS for rootfs on NAND.
When I edited a file like /etc/rc.local with nano command and saveed it,
"cat /etc/rc.local" shows the editted content, of course.
However after removing power supply (without reboot or poweroff command) and supply power again, the content of /etc/rc.local becomes empty.
I found that written data is not written to NAND straight away in UBIFS and written to cache. (refer: http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/faq/ubifs.html#L_empty_file)
I want to sync to NAND straightly after editting.
Only solution I found is fsync, but this should be called in C program and it requires file descripter. Nano command and so on does not give us file descripter. So I can not solve this sync problem.
How can I solve this not syncing to NAND problem?
Are there any command to sync?
Do I have to edit files with C program and use fsync if I want to edit and save a file in UBIFS?
You can use the 'sync' command. the system will flush all the cache to the disk.
Good evening everyone! I have been working on this for sometime, but can't figure it out. I am simply trying to get the working bootcode of a bootloader installed on an attached media, but can't figure this out!!! I have tried grub legacy, lilo, and grub2... The host system has it's drive listed as /dev/sda* and the target attached media is listed as /dev/sdb* and is mounted to /mnt/target.
With grub legacy, I was attempting to work with another media (/dev/sdc*, /mnt/source) that already had it installed and tried dirty hacks like:
dd if=/mnt/source/boot/grub/stage1 of=/dev/sdb bs=446 count=1
dd if=/mnt/source/boot/grub/stage2 of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=1
This will actually boot into a grub interface where you can enter things like:
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
I get no error messages, but grub will boot to garbage on the screen and then stop.
With lilo, I actually had the package installed and tried to setup (after creating a lilo.conf):
default=Test1
timeout=10
compact
prompt
lba32
backup=/mnt/target/boot/lilo/MBR.hda.990428
map=/mnt/target/boot/lilo/map
install=/mnt/target/boot/lilo/boot.b
image=/mnt/target/boot/vmlinuz
label=Test1
append="quiet ... settime"
initrd=/mnt/target/boot/ramdisks/working.gz
And then from the prompt execute the following:
$ lilo -C /mnt/target/boot/lilo/lilo.conf -b /dev/sdb
Warning: /dev/sdb is not on the first disk
Fatal: Sorry, don't know how to handle device 0x0701
With grub2, I tried something like:
grub-mkconfig -o /mnt/target/boot/grub/grub.cfg
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-12-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-12-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
No volume groups found
done
I couldn't even get the above to generate a grub.cfg correctly or in the right spot so I gave up on this one... The entries listed above are for the host system, not the target system.
I can provide any additional information that you guys need to help resolve this problem.
-UPDATE-
After working with the media a bit longer, I decided to run an 'fdisk -l' and was presented with the following info:
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys(0,32,33) logical(0,37,14)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys(62,53,55) logical(336,27,19)
I should also note that when I try to mount the partition I always get a message that states:
EXT4-fs (sdb1): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
Not sure if that is just specific to busybox, or if that is related to the fdisk output. Anyhow, I don't know if the fdisk info is indicating that there may be a problem with the disk geometry that could be causing all these bootloaders to not work.
First stage boot sector code for grub legacy is in "stage1", for grub(2) in "boot.img". Fist stage code contains the address of next stage to be loaded on same disk.
On some other disk the address of next stage to be loaded could be (and is maybe) different.
I think using chroot and grub-install would be a better way to go.
See Grub2/Installing.
As for disk/partition structure:
dd if=/mnt/source/boot/grub/stage2 of=/dev/sdb bs=512 seek=1
maybe has overwritten partition table in MBR of sdb.
I want to check that you can boot from a volume… Like the System Pref for Start Volume does.
Any ideas?
I looked in a lot of Tables, but nothing that indicates that is bootable.
On Linux you can use fdisk -l but that won't work on Mac OS.
diskutil info -plist (path)
With the -plist option the results include a boolean flag named Bootable.